Title: Payphone
Summary: So let me give you a short rundown. Annabeth and I have been together for what? Seven years now? And in that long seven years, this is our first fight. Not kidding. We exchanged some... words, and next thing I know she kicks me out. So here I am, at a payphone, trying to call her. So far, I'm on dollar number 12 and she still hasn't picked up. And to be honest, I don't know if she'll ever.
Hey guys! So obviously, this song was inspired by Maroon 5's song Payphone. I don't own that btw, I also don't own Percy Jackson. Honestly, this can be long or short. So lets just see where the night takes us.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-So let's do this-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Percy's PoV
It's been a long long day. At work, I got framed for spilling the printer ink and got the price deducted from my pay. I hate this job. I mean, Percy Jackson, demigod, ADHD victim, dyslexic,
working a nine to five job a Olympian Paper Company? Are you kidding me? So I've been having a bad day. All I want to do is come home to Annabeth and my two sons, Charlie and Luke. I pulled the Prius up our suburban driveway. Did I mention how much I wanted to live in the city? But Annabeth said "It's best for Charlie to grow up in a safe and positive environment," and "It's close to camp anyway" Pshh... downtown Manhattan is totally safe. Except at night, then it gets crazy dangerous with all the freaks and monster hanging around. And it's totally positive, everywhere you go, the people are kind and loving and stuff.
Just kidding.
Everywhere you drive all you hear is, "HEY! I'M WALKING HERE!" and various cars honking. It gets annoying when it's rush hour and some stupid people think it's a good idea to walk over every road in the whole of freaking Manhattan. Like, are you Forrest Gump or something? No? Then don't. I don't mean to be rude or anything, but like I said, bad day.
I walked in, set my computer case down, and took off my shoes. What a long walk to the garage. The walk is never long in an apartment, just saying. My feet felt heavenly when I took off the sweaty, slightly small shoes and set them down at the front door entrance. Annabeth would disapprove of my actions completely. They don't call me Persassy for no reason. Sighing, I leaned back against the cool door. It felt so good and I just want to-
"DADDY!"
I shot up, my demigod senses on edge, only to be greeted by what seemed like a small animal attacking me. I swear on the River Styx almost grabbed Riptide before realising the it was just Luke, my son. Luke is three and a half and has golden, wavy-ish blonde hair. Kind of like mine, always looked windswept and ruffled. His eyes were a fresh, shimmering sea-green. Looking at my eyes without mirror, I've come to see why many people love them. He tackled me and grabbed a fistful of my hair. That's a shame though, I thought he knew better than to mess with Persassy Jackson. I judo flipped him (but lightly, so he doesn't get hurt or anything), which I learned from Annabeth, and pinned him to the ground. I then tickled him until he ran off in a laughing fit. Charlie was in close suite. He was only one and 10 months. And had short, raven black hair like his devilishly handsome father, and brilliant grey eyes. I love his eyes more than anything. He walked kind of weird, with his legs spread out but I just think that's cute. Annabeth wants to correct it. Well smiled and did his best to run up to me. Did I mention that this kid was crazy smart. He could already talk a little and learns commands on the spot. And he is resourceful too. He uses his cuteness against him. And leave it to Percy Jackson to get fooled by someone who isn't even in PreK yet. He slowed down his own pace when he approached me, and held out his arms for a hug. I automatically held out mine too, as a natural hug from this kid was highly unlikely. He quickly slammed his small hands onto either side of my face, and pushed me down with his body weight. I had to give it to this kid, I was surprised. I tumbled back, slamming my dome on the door and almost getting knocked out. Charlie giggled a bit and got off me, as if satisfied with his work and hobbled off. I swear these kids are more tiring than monster attacks.
I heaved myself up with a huge yawn, and sneaked through the living room to find this heavenly smell coming from the kitchen. There were three heads bobbing around the counter. One of them a slick, dark chocolatey brown hair is perfect curls that I know and love so much, my mom, another was a huge curly mess of auburn red hair. There only one person that could belong to, obviously. The third was a shiny, jet black, spiky mass of….well, spikiness. A grin spread across my face. I slowly approached them, set on a huge surprise. Then my plan was diabolically foiled by a certain blonde. Before I knew it, I was flipped, looking up at the beautiful Annabeth who I was happy to call my wife.
"Hey honey, I'm home." I placed a chaste kiss on her lips.
"Get out! Percy don't you know how to knock?! You're so stupid!" She rambled on and on, listing things I did wrong.
"Well that a nice greeting," I mumbled, almost to myself. "You know, the kitchen has no door, and I came back quite loudly judging that these two," I gestured to Charlie and Luke who looked up, identical lopsided grins spreading across their faces, before turning back to watching Go Diego Go! "greeted me quite stridently," I finished.
I smiled at my use of the amazing word. While Annabeth's face dropped, her eyes shining with a clear emotion, maybe fear, disappointment? Wait… urgency. It was urgency and nervousness. Her face then quickly contorted into anger.
"Well perhaps if you addressed me conventionally, instead of being abstruse, I could've appropriately made a rejoinder."
Well obviously, I lost the word fight.
Ignoring her confusing use of big words, I sniffed the air which was still full of that godly smell.
"What are you doing anyway?" I inquired, getting up, and continued making my way to the counter.
"Nothing! Get out! You're home early anyway. Go teach Luke and CJ some sword fighting or something." She nervously glanced to the counter. "Yeah! They have always wanted to learn and stuff so you should really go and take them outside to the park to do it because, um, our neighbor's neighbor is sleeping and you guys are pretty loud and while you're at it get the car washed and buy some eggs and bread and other stuff from, um, Texas so we can do have girls night out here and watch chick flicks! Alone!" She rambled while slowly pushing me out the door and handing me Charlie and Luke. Gods, is she a bad actor or what? Annabeth, the grammar queen making a run on sentence? Woah. Something must be up.
"Ok just make sure you-" I started before being shoved out the door.
"Bye!" She slammed the door in my face, leaving me outside alone with Luke and CJ. All our faces broke out into identical grins. I pulled out Riptide, while Luke pulled out his sword, Tearwave, which is basically a replica of mine, except it turns into and electric red gel pen. It was from Chiron for his third birthday, also his third summer at camp. We sparred, me making sure to not injure him at all and him making sure to try to injure me as hard as he could. It's harder than you think, I also had to dodge Charlie (CJ) who was running around clapping to the sound of our swords clashing together.
At last, when I finally pinned him to the ground, the tip of Riptide and neck point, he rolled over. That may sound fine, but I wasn't. I made the mistake of bringing Riptide a the point to him, thinking he knew better than to make sudden movements, but apparently, he didn't. He rolled over, making a huge gash on his upper bicep, crying out in pain, and keeling over.
Annabeth's PoV
So today is Percy's birthday, and I'm working with Ms. Jackson, my mother-in-law. Well I should call her Sally since we're both adults and technically, I'm Mrs. Jackson so….
Anyways,
It's Percy's birthday and Ms. Jackson was kind enough to give me her blue birthday cake secret family recipe. She said I was family, so I accepted. I called over Rachel and Thalia and we were making the cake together. Then Percy had to ruin it all by coming in early and stuff and following the smell and ugh. I managed to shove him out with the kids and finish in time.
By the time I put it in the oven, the girls had already left.
"Love you Annabeth!" Sally cooed.
"Nothing funny tonight, remember," Thalia smirked, leaving my face red hot.
"Have fun!" Rachel said, slightly bitter, but no ulterior motives.
The cake was ready and I got this perfect present and I really am the most amazing wife ever.
Just as I finished frosting the cake, I heard a cry coming from outside.
This idiot.
I rushed out to find Percy and CJ with shocked faces and Luke writhing on the floor with deep gash in his arm. I froze then unfroze immediately knowing that my baby needed my help. I rushed to his side, ambrosia and nectar at the ready and fed into him. The cut healed immediately, but it still needed to heal on the inside, which could be easily fixed with some bedrest. I took him to his room and laid him down in the blue sheets, and covered him.
Once that was taken care of I decided that it was time CJ go to sleep and put him in his crib. He fell asleep immediately.
He is so cute when he sleeps
No, stop it.
And he's obedient too.
STOP IT HEAD.
I stormed downstairs to find Percy with his head in his hands, on our blue loveseat in the living room. This is no time for comfort. He was being careless and if I had'nt been here… now not the time to think about that.
He turned to face me.
"Annabeth I-"
"What were you thinking?!" My voice was shaky and tired. "He could have died! I mean did you see that cut?! He could've been terribly hurt! Or worse! I definately going to scar!" I practically screamed.
"It was an accident! And ambrosia gets rid of scars also, and I know where stash is! I could've fed it to him anyways!"
"How could you be so dumb? YOu so careless with them anyways! Always throwing CJ around and stuff. You're going to kill them and-"
He stood up.
"ARE YOU SERIOUSLY CRAZY? I WOULD NEVER KILL THEM I'M A FREAKING HERO FOR THE GODS' SAKE!"
"Well you've sure let a lot of your comrades die. Selena, Bianca, Charlie, Luke and so many more! Like Bob! How do you think he feels knowing you betrayed him for the last time! Huh percy? How?" I immediately regretted the words that came out of my mouth.
He looked surprised, then scared, then sad, and then all at once, his eyes faded. Losing complete faith in me.
"How about you?" He asked "You're the reason Fredrick is dead. You're the reason that he can't even see his own grandchildren." He retorted coldly. That one really hit home. I was baking a welcome back cake after Dad got a heart surgery and I fell asleep and forgot to turn it off and next thing I know the house is up in flames.
He was saved and was admitted to the hospital and died 2 days later. I was devastated. Percy was the one who told me that it was okay, and that he had a weak heart anyways.
"Get out." I seethed.
"What?" he looked taken aback at my sudden command.
"I SAID GET OUT YOU IDIOT!" I yelled throwing pillows and other various items at him.
"But-"
"GET OUT OF MY FREAKIN HOUSE!" I screamed, before hearing CJ cry up in my room.
"Fine." he replied simply before grabbing his keys, and coat before marching off. I plopped down on the couch, regretting everything I said and thinking if he regretted anything.
"Mommy?" Luke called from the bottom of the staircase. It whipped toward him in shock. How much did he see? "Is daddy every coming back?"
I ambled over to his and crouch down to be at his height. "Yes honey? I touched pushed his hair out of his face.
"Is daddy ever coming back?" He asked.
So he saw everything.
I know Percy had always been Luke's favorite parent, which made me like 305932520 times more guilty for taking that away from him. Nonetheless, I picked him at and made my way over to the couch and sat down with him in my lap.
"I don't honey." I buried my head into his sea-spray-smelling hair. He insisted on using Percy's shampoo last night.
"I don't know." I finished.
Percy's PoV
I had initially thought about just leaning on the side of the house to and taking swings at a tree with Riptide to blow off some steam, though here I am, on 5th Avenue, driving towards the mall. By the time I got there, all my anger had been blown out, Riptide still hadn't appeared back in my pocket, and I saw a couple of harpies in the distance, and all I had was 15 dollars in my pocket and all I had was a rusty old payphone behind the store. I stepped into it, and inserted 25 cents, and dialed in Annabeth's phone number.
-Time skip to an hour and a half later-
So basically it'd been an hour and a half and I'd left exactly 48 voicemails and I was running out of money. I had like three dollars left and I spent 1.50 in a cinnamon bun because I so hungry and I didn't eat any dinner. I continued calling till I was out of money and then slumped against the clouded glass wall of the booth. I left a grand total of 54 voicemails. It was a series of "I'm sorry's" and "Please call back" and "Come pick me up's" The last one was "Annabeth I'm sorry for hurting you. I know how much Fredrick meant to you, and I hope you know that I'm so so sorry and no matter what, I'll always love you."
After what seemed like forever, Riptide appeared in my pocket. Just in time, because those harpie had finally found me and were clawing at the glass of the payphone. I calmly filed out and sliced all three of their necks off in one fail swoop. They crumbled to dust with an ear-splitting shriek. Back to Tartarus from them. With that thought,, my brain started to fill up with images from Tartarus. I sank to my knees in the small booth and my eyes faded.
Falling with Annabeth
Seeing her cry at night
So many sleepless nights
Bob
Realizing that we were on Tartarus' body
Monsters
Drinking that foul water
Choking Akhlys with her own tears
Bending poison
Nightmares
Shadows
Nightmares
Annabeth dies
Nightmares
The doors shut
Nightmares
Annabeth is in the elevator
Nightmares
Bob is in there also
Nightmares
I'm not
Nightmares
The monsters strike
Nightmares
I die
Nightmares
Annabeth
Nightmares
I don't like this
Nightma-
"PERCY!" A familiar voice screamed into my face. My eyes snapped open to find Annabeth in the booth in front of me.
"Oh my- Oh my gods, Percy I missed you so so much! I was so scared! I didn't know where you were or what you were doing and you left Riptide at home so-" She said, her voice was choked and breathless, her eyes glossed over with tears. My face felt really cold everytime the wind blew for some reason. I realised that I had been crying, and then I realised she was crying too.
Nice job, Percy. I thought bitterly.
"Yeah. Yeah, I think I missed you too." I cupped her cheek with my hand and slowly brought her face closer to mine…
Annabeth's PoV
As soon as he let I went after him. Luke and CJ jumped in with me. I swear, I went around the whole of Manhattan before he found him crying in the booth. I kept shaking him and calling his name but he wouldn't answer. He just kept silently crying, looking off into space. I suddenly got a pang of fear that cause me to check his pulse. It was a little slow, but still there, beating. Sucking in a breath, I screamed his name right into his face and he seemed to wake up from his little daze.
"Oh my- Oh my gods, Percy! I missed you so so much! I was so scared! I didn't know where you were or what you were doing and you left Riptide at home so-" I took in a sharp breath, and was about to start again before he spoke up.
"Yeah. Yeah, I think I missed you too," He uttered airily.
He cupped my cheek and brought my face closer to his. I closed my eyes and inches towards him. Suddenly, felt the familiar sensation of his lips on mine, I threw my arms around his neck and twirled the hair at the nape of his neck around my lips tasted minty, with a twinge of salt. It may sound gross but I just can't get enough of it. The kiss was long and sweet- or it would have been long if not for Luke yelling,
"MOMMY AND DADDY, SITTIN' IN A TREE! K-I-S-S-I-N-G! FIRST CAME LOVE, CAME MARRIAGE, THEN CAME MOMMY WITH CJ IN A CARRIAGE!"
We broke apart with a small *pop* and stared at each other before our faces simultaneously flushed a deep crimson, before looking at Luke who had a smug, Annabeth-like smirk written all over his face. How much did he see? Oh gods, I swear, he's definitely going to try this on Samantha, Frank and Hazel's at school tomorrow. I sighed.
"Daddy and I were just hugging, dear." I smiled, quite fakely, but he didn't need to know that.
"That's a lie, Mommy, you do this all the time," he looked at me skeptically, and a wave of guilt washed over for me, then it quickly washed out. I mean, didn't I have the right to be hopelessly in love with my own husband?
"It's not a lie!" I pushed on, "It's was j-"
"Lie!" CJ repeated, clapping his hands.
"Oh forget it," I sighed, turning back to Percy, who flashed a perfect white smile and was cut off by my lips on his. He basically melted the seconds our lips collided, and we kept doing it until my hair was pulled quite forcefully by CJ.
Babies really can't take a hint, can they?
Luke seemed to just realize that his arm was cut on the inside, and doubled over in pain. Percy had already taken the duty to scoop him up and carry him to the Prius. After a long and, shall I say, heavy ride, we arrived home. I, as the mother took the liberty of singing Luke a lullaby, which Percy almost fell asleep to himself, before I slapped him awake. CJ had already gotten himself to sleep responsibly, and it was just Percy and I in an empty and dark house. He took my hand in mine, and together we made our way back to the bedroom. To be honest, both Percy and I were exhausted, both mentally and physically.
But not exhausted enough to lay down, my head on Percy's Chest and his head buried in my hair. I listened to his heartbeat, beating calmly in his chest. I loved the sound of it. I reminded her that he was alive, that he was here with me. We took turns whispering sweet nothings into one another's eyes before a final good night kiss, in private I might add, and falling into a sweet, blissful, dreamless sleep.
~TIMESKIP TO THE NEXT MORNING~
I woke up to the room casted in a blue hue, coming from the light shining through the deep blue curtains. The room was tidy under my orders, which made me feel new and refreshed. I glanced at the alarm clock next to me. It was 10 o'clock on the dot. Let's see, at 11:30 Luke heads to camp to do some school/ training. We can't have him go to school because he was born knowing that he is a demigod and since the most popular demigods in CHB (i.e. Percy, Thalia, Nico, Me, Clarisse, you know the deal) had grown up, there was a crap ton of demigod children running around Manhattan. That's we all live on a small street called Half Blood Court, which is cloaked kind of like Camp Half Blood and invisible to mortals. So everyday, we head out in small groups to camp to give our children some education. Short story long.
Suddenly, I heard CJ yelling something like "STOP" before a loud crash and Luke going "AHH!"
Seriously? I haven't even had my coffee yet.
Percy slept through it all, being the deep sleeper he is.
Gods, what is it now? I thought before storming down the stairs and towards the kitchen, where all the ruckus was occurring.
I came there to see CJ on top of Luke, he obviously tackled him judging by their positions. Luke had blue all over his nose, lips, cheeks and basically everywhere around the mouth area, his hand covered in blue cake and frosting. Wait, frosting? I followed his eyes to the counter where my blue cake lay, looking deteriorated and ugly. I glanced at CJ, who was spotless. It figures, the baby doesn't touch the cake but the almost four year does. That's not ironic at all. I wasn't really mad, judging that all that cake reminded me of was bad memories from last night.
"Mommy, are you mad at me?" Luke pleaded, fear shaking throughout his body.
"No honeyhead, I'm not," I replied, scooping him up to got take him a shower.
"Ok." He leaned into the crook of my neck, not caring to explain what happened at all. We left, leaving Sammy in the kitchen alone, who smirked, and grabbed his own fistful of the cake. We we finished with the bath, I came down to see Sammy frustrated, trying to turn on the TV by just pointing the remote at it, completely not realising that there's any buttons on it alone. I left him to figure it out and learn something new. Heading over to the kitchen finally for the my morning coffee, I wasn't surprised to see Percy, his hands and face covered in blue, resembling Luke earlier. He grinned, his once pearly grin clouded with blue.
"You really are an idiot, you know that right?" I chuckled, finding a seat next to him, fork in hand.
"Oh shut up, you love it," he laughed, kissing me sweetly on the lips, my mouth flooding with the sweet taste of my amazing cooking. I smiled against the kiss before hearing a familiar voice behind me.
"MOMMY AND DADDY SITTI-"
He was cut of by PEercy throwing Riptide at him, missing by a quarter of an inch with amazing accuracy.
"Where were we?" Turned to face he again, "Oh yes, I know you love me." He grinned, before kissing me once again.
"That I do," I smiled against his lips, after the long day I had yesterday, I really needed this, and he seemed to too, judging by how he was holding onto me like his life depended on it.
"That I do."
So how was it? This was my first so I hope it was good! Anyways, if I get good reviews, I might just feel like making this a two-shot!
Inspirations:
My life (details classified)
My cousin as CJ
My other cousin as Luke
My uncle as Percy
Obviously the song "Payphone" by Maroon 5
I love you guys from the bottom of my heart to the top of my sternum.
Follow your dreams.
Baibai!
-ProjectPercabeth
